Bulletins from the boat of dreams | The ocean flowers for 43 days | The engine’s devout heart beats away | so steadily beneath the decks | builds a stalwart monotony | so implied | in every circle | of our thinking | it might be paradise | The cabin boy begins his seduction | of the young girl | with the words | I will teach you things | you cannot find in the bible | and so | it transpires | The heat and light | renders every item | heroic | — the details | of superstructure | the quoits | ellipsoid | voids of the mouths | of the ventilation | cowls | the shadow | cast by a button | or by a hand resting | on the page | of a book | in the lap | of a sleeping | passenger | Ports, they are forgotten, land | what does that feel like | underfoot, a fixed | ground? | the voyage | carries nothing with it | but the voyage | we inhabit | a portable world | a floating | stage | At 12.00 noon | my only desire | is adoration | She has a solemn face | inscrutable in repose | I take out of her | very slowly | lotus | very wet petals | so many of them | very long, slimy roots | what have they touched? | how deep | they must be | to draw from us both | such sighs | of rapture verging | on distress | So | sinuous | pale from immersion | in the warm, clouded waters | of Balinese pools | graceful and muscular | like the necks of drinking | swans | needing | shade | twirling her | parasol | she walks | out of me | along the uneven | bank of a wide river | few | travellers | sampans | in the distance | mid-stream | but she is not lonely | she finds a place | beneath palm trees | and sits | smoothing her dress down | against her slender legs | takes out a book | makes to read | a metallic | violet butterfly | lands on the cover | of plain cream, minutely | disturbing | the soft | cargoes | of Verlaine | (Je suis l’Empire à la fin de la décadence) | borne in that paper craft | to imperceptible locations | a solitary room where orphans | dance childish tangos to a phonograph | and from their sadness, dream | of suicides so lush, so cool | so | definitive | bodies arranged in classic poses | flesh poetically pale | and in those shapes of death | may rest, perfectly at their ease, until the dawn | of the 44th morning…

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from the seriesbliss point | angels of disorder
(open-ended, 2012–present)